


the sound of the wind is whispering in your head

by aserenitatum



Category: Birds of Prey (And the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn) (2020)
Genre: F/F, Pining, cameo by Cass, this is heavy Dinah introspective
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-14
Updated: 2020-04-14
Packaged: 2021-03-02 00:14:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,777
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23655940
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aserenitatum/pseuds/aserenitatum
Summary: Dinah has never been so slow in her pursuit, choosing to make her intentions with a new partner clear from the very beginning so that they could always get to the good stuff. She doesn’t like the uncertainty of dancing around each other, the slow torture of drawn-out intention setting and even more so the anxiety that comes with worrying about whether you’re on the same page.Were this anybody else, she’d have shown up a quarter to midnight in her tightest pants and barely-there top with a bottle of cheap liquor and a dangerous smile and by midnight she’d have been halfway to an orgasm.But this isn't anybody else. This is Helena — gorgeous, awkward, wonderful,Helena.
Relationships: Helena Bertinelli/Dinah Lance
Comments: 75
Kudos: 426





	the sound of the wind is whispering in your head

**Author's Note:**

> heavy on the Dinah, heavy on the yearning, heavy on the internal monologue.  
> I hope you like it!  
> (tw for mention of her mother's death)  
> thanks, as always, to my lovely beta Maus

Dinah is in hell. 

The faint voice in the back of her head that sounds a lot like her great aunt suggests that actually, she’s in purgatory and not hell, but Dinah’s never really understood the difference between the two and great aunt Georgina hadn’t ever explained it to her in terms she could understand. None of it really matters at the moment, because purgatory or hell, Dinah is suffering. 

She’s always thought of herself as a patient person, had herself convinced that she could wait for things if they were the type of thing that she considered worth waiting for, like slow-cooked short ribs, or a bespoke bracelet with a long delivery time, or a woman with an awkward smile and a kind heart and a killer instinct. 

Dinah has never waited this long. 

She has never been so slow in her pursuit, choosing to make her intentions with a new partner clear from the very beginning so that they could always get to the good stuff. She doesn’t like the uncertainty of dancing around each other, the slow torture of drawn-out intention setting and even moreso the anxiety that comes with worrying about whether you’re on the same page. 

Were this anybody else, she’d have shown up a quarter to midnight in her tightest pants and barely-there top with a bottle of cheap liquor and a dangerous smile and by midnight she’d have been halfway to an orgasm. 

But with Helena — gorgeous, awkward, smart, Helena — she purposely slowed her seduction. The moment she realised the extent of Helena’s inexperience, she’d made a conscious effort to not come on too strongly, so afraid that doing so would make the woman step away from her, too overwhelmed. Helena deserves better than what would essentially be a release of pent up tension mixed with a healthy dose of confusing feelings of love and lust intertwined. 

Helena Bertinelli deserves to be wooed. 

Dinah’s been going slowly for a year, has been going through torturous madness for a year and is starting to wonder whether she should maybe pick up the pace a little bit because at this rate… 

At this rate she’ll be lucky to get a kiss before she turns forty and honestly, Dinah’s not sure she won’t have gone completely insane in that time so something’s gonna have to give. 

Helena deserves better than a pounce and a fuck. 

(Dinah deserves better too — deserves to have this in a way that is less about scratching an itch and much more about mending the shattered shards of her heart.) 

She’s always had trouble falling asleep. 

When Dinah was little, she remembers tears at bedtime and lying awake for what felt like hours, and this had stretched into her teenage years when she’d stay up so late her body had no choice but to collapse as soon as her head hit a pillow. 

Her aunties had said she was just a night owl and that it would sort itself out, except it never did. 

Even now, while she enjoys sleeping, it’s the actual falling asleep part she has trouble with. Once asleep, she could sleep through anything, a byproduct of growing up right in the heart of busy Gotham City, but those long hours of laying in bed, eyes closed, breathing deeply to trick her body into believing she was tired? Torturous. 

Helena is a really good sleeper in a way that Dinah never would have expected from her. She sleeps on her side, legs tucked up into her body with one arm across her chest and the other curled under the pillow and Dinah just knows that if she were sleeping alone, Helena would have a knife under her pillow, fingers curled lightly around it so that she’s ready for anything. 

The moment they decided to live together, Renee banned excessive weapons in the house. Dinah had been ready to fight it, comforted by the knowledge that she had something within reach everywhere in her old apartment and she’d expected Helena to as well, given half of the only bag she brought with her was filled with knives and bolts and throwing stars, but she’d shrugged and simply asked where she should store her weapons instead. 

Hearing Renee’s motivation for it, about how many domestic situations were made worse by having a teenager with easy access to weapons in the house, Dinah had agreed and Renee had punched Helena’s shoulder and said that she was all the protection they’d need anyway. 

Dinah’s heart had fluttered when Helena lifted her chin proudly, small grin on her face as she’d said, “Yes.” 

Still, habits are hard to break and when you live fifteen years watching out for yourself with a knife under your pillow, finding a new position to sleep in is hard. 

Dinah twists carefully so as to not wake Helena and takes advantage of the cloak of night to stare at the woman. She’s deeply asleep, breathing even and body relaxed, and Dinah is endlessly endeared by the tiniest hint of a frown that persists even in her sleep. 

She hadn’t expected Helena to climb into bed with her in the first place, but Harley had fallen asleep on Helena’s bed and Dinah knows that as much as she pretends to be annoyed by Harley, Helena didn’t have the heart to wake and kick her out of bed. Renee had already locked her bedroom door, wary of night time shenanigans that Harley was known for, and Cassandra was sprawled like a starfish on her queen-sized bed, having adjusted very quickly to having the large mattress that Helena had insisted they get her despite Cass’ overwhelmed and sincere argument that she’d be fine and that she didn’t need that much. 

“Come on,” Dinah had said before Helena could even think about sleeping on the couch, hand dragging down Helena’s forearm in a gentle and encouraging touch that Helena had been starting to grow used to, no longer freezing up at the skin-on-skin contact the way she had in the beginning and Dinah counted that as a win. “I’m not gonna let you sleep on the couch in your own damn house.” 

She hadn’t expected Helena to agree, so when the woman had barely shrugged and said, “Okay,” Dinah was left standing in the living room, staring at the couch she’d brought from her old apartment while Helena went into the bathroom to brush her teeth. 

A true testament to how safe and at home Helena felt in their new house, she’d just grabbed a spare blanket from Dinah’s closet and crawled into bed, curling up and bidding her a goodnight and moments after she’d closed her eyes, Dinah could hear her breathing even out as she fell asleep. 

Dinah’s never had any negative thoughts about Helena or any part of her background, but in that moment, her first reaction had been, “What a freak.” 

It was more a jealous response than anything because after she’d gotten comfortable in bed, she could feel the restlessness settle in again and knew she’d be in for a long night and no matter how often she counts sheep, and the ridges in her ceiling, and Helena’s breaths, she does not fall asleep. 

Her fingers itch with the need to reach out and trace the gentle slope of Helena’s nose, to press her fingertips right at the furrow of her brow to smooth it out, to see if the skin over her cheekbone is as soft as it looks and Dinah knows that she’s hopelessly lost. 

The lust had been immediate and electric but this? The almost primal need to wrap her arms around Helena and never let go? That was slow to develop. 

There’s something about the way Helena can so easily switch from brutal revenge killer to quiet, compassionate carer that makes Dinah’s insides twist. How careful and kind she is with Cassandra, that principal need to keep the teenager away from any more senseless brutality that manifests itself in a way not dissimilar to intense mom protection, how awkward she is about having a mountain of riches to take care of her new circle of friends, so unused to having friends in the first place, the way she’ll sometimes sit on the edge of the bathtub and watch Dinah take off her makeup, the two of them cloaked in a peaceful silence. 

Dinah is fucking screwed. 

Wanting to wrap your fingers around toned arms to feel the ripple of muscles? The urge to run fingers through messy brown curls and push them away from a kind, confused face? A faint smile sparking an almost primal need to know what those lips feel like against her own? That feeling that her ribcage can’t contain all the emotions she’s trying to hold inside of her whenever she so much as looks at Helena? 

Torture. 

Dinah doesn’t remember her father, only stories she’d been told by her mom, tales that sometimes seemed more fiction than reality, and it had always been just the two of them against the world. 

Her mom worked double shifts to keep them fed and clothed and Dinah had tried to be a good kid so that all her mom’s work wasn’t in vain. 

They’d watch TV at home, Dinah sitting in front of her mother while she got her hair braided, or unbraided depending on the week, and they’d laugh over late-night reruns of Oprah and share a bowl of the cheapest chips they could find on the shelf. 

As she grew older, Dinah’d had to move to the floor because she became too tall for her mother, and the weeknights turned into Friday nights because Dinah had a few friends and her mom had a new side gig and that’s just how things go when you’re a teenager. 

Dinah had been idealistic and naive, thinking her mom was helping the city by helping the police and even though she always wondered how exactly it was her mom managed to help, she never questioned it. She could deal with the thinly veiled jabs from her classmates, and she never worried about her mom because she believed that the cops would keep a helpful civilian safe. 

She’d been walking home one day, and Dinah can’t remember anything about that particular day — not what she’d been wearing, not who she had lunch with, not what her teachers had said to her, not even if she had said “I love you” to her mom before rushing out the door — except for the sound of silence. 

She’d turned the corner, still three blocks away from home when she’d spotted a police car and an ambulance and a small crowd gathered around a cordoned-off area, and curiosity had gotten the better of her. 

Another person in Gotham, dead, and she’d been curious about it, eager to bring it up the next day at school with friends, until she’d stepped closer. 

She remembers the tape cutting into the skin of her arms as she’d frozen, the body on the ground far too familiar, not even covered, plainly for all eyes to see. 

She remembers hearing nothing at all, not the sirens, not the whispers of people, not the cop stepping her way and asking her if she was alright. She doesn’t hear herself say anything, she doesn’t hear them call her aunt and above all, she doesn’t hear her own sobs. 

She remembers the anger and the resentment and the grief and having to go to school as if her whole life hadn’t just been ripped out from under her feet. 

She remembers the silence of school, how even kids who had been friendly to her before were giving her a wide berth as if having a murdered mother was somehow contagious. 

She’d learned the true nature of people that year, how helping doesn’t mean you get helped, how a community that’s there for the good won’t be there for the bad, how people don’t give a shit about an orphan kid, that friends are only there for their own benefit, how family members who say things like “I’m sorry for your loss” can turn around and say “well she had it coming for being involved with the cops”, how unfair the world is to black women just trying to survive. 

Her mother had always taught her to be kind to everybody, but Dinah had stopped believing in people. 

She knows she has the kindness inside her because she doesn’t want to think that the only thing she inherited from her mother is sad eyes and a killer voice. She knows she can be kind. 

She’s trying. 

It’s easy with Cassandra. And Helena. And Renee. 

(Not with Harley; with Harley it’s fucking difficult but she’s _trying._ ) 

Renee knew her mom and talks about her like she was all that was good in the world and doesn’t avoid bringing up the past the way everybody else does in fear of upsetting her and it helps, it works to remind her that she wants to be less reluctant with her kindness like her mother even though the universe had tried its damned best to smother it out of her. 

Cassandra is easy to love because she’s never been loved and Dinah sees too many parallels and a kid who’s been through too much and she doesn’t even hide how much she cares about the kid because she’s learning that loving and caring and worrying about someone doesn’t have to make her weak. 

And Helena, with her rare laugh and soft eyes, makes Dinah _feel_. 

When Helena looks at her sometimes, Dinah feels like she has an actual heart beating in her chest instead of shattered glass pushing out against her lungs, just waiting to puncture anything soft and drown her. 

But sometimes Helena will look at her, really look at her, and Dinah feels like maybe it’s okay, that it’ll be alright, and that she’s safe. 

Helena calls her all kinds of things — caring, trustworthy, compassionate — even when Dinah knows she’s not but when Helena says them in her plain-spoken voice, words like an analysis meant more for a report than a cordial conversation between teammates, she almost believes them. 

Dinah wonders how Helena manages to live with the trauma and still be so damn kind. 

Dinah hates the quiet. 

She loves their new living situation, she loves that Cass has a proper home, she loves that she doesn’t have to hear her neighbour fake an orgasm for her husband, and she loves Helena and loves living with her and getting to be with her the whole day, but she hates the quiet. 

They have a whole floor to themselves, the top floor for security reasons that Dinah hadn’t really paid attention to when explained, and the lack of sound coming from the street adds to Dinah’s unease. 

She hadn’t realised how much she’d gotten used to the comforting sounds of Gotham, the cars rolling by slowly, drunks stumbling into trashcans on their way home, kids laughing and skipping on the street, the rumble of motorcycles, the sounds of the city. 

Even when she’d been sent to live with her great aunt she’d had sounds around her, the woman seemingly unable to live without the radio on and Dinah remembers sneaking out of her room at three am to turn down the tinny sound of the stereo — just to see what would happen — only for the woman to wake up within a minute and turn the volume back up. 

Helena does everything quietly. 

Dinah is convinced that they could live together and be home together the whole day without Dinah ever noticing because Helena is just that silent. 

She doesn’t listen to music, barely makes a sound when she moves, and she can apparently blend in seamlessly within a room, so seamlessly in fact that one time Dinah had made it all the way to the couch with her bowl of cereal before she’d noticed Helena sitting on the ground in front of the coffee table, sorting through her bolts. 

She hadn’t screamed but she really wanted to, and Helena had looked up at her with curious eyes when she’d made a half-hidden startled noise. 

“I’ve been here the whole time,” she said because it was not the first time to happen and Dinah had just nodded while trying to calm her racing heart, a feat made damn near impossible when she’d noticed that Helena was only wearing a sports bra and her dark grey sweatpants. 

The only sound she has now is the faint buzz from the air conditioning and the occasional tremble of her window from a strong gust of wind. 

Helena doesn’t make a sound even when sleeping and Dinah twists onto her side and leans in close, tempted to hold a small mirror under Helena’s nose to make sure she’s still breathing. 

Instead, she gets a close-up view of Helena’s long lashes as they rest against her skin where her cheek dips towards her eyes, the slope of her nose to a perfect cupid’s bow and a full lower lip that tempts Dinah into thoughts she shouldn’t be having while sharing her bed. 

She could just drag the tips of her fingers along it, just for a feel. She could run her fingers through Helena’s messy waves, pretend she’s just moving them away from her face, she could drag her palm down Helena’s arm, say she just wanted to see if she was cold. 

She doesn’t do any of that. 

Instead she stares at the woman and wonders what else she could possibly do — when Helena’s awake — to somehow convey her feelings without having to crack open her chest and let everything spill out. 

She doesn’t know how else she’s supposed to push Helena in the right direction, what else she could possibly do short of straddling her and kissing her and actually saying “I like you and not just as friends but as fully gay I want to kiss you and marry you kind of gay.” 

Maybe not the marriage part. Maybe leave that part out. 

She wonders what Oprah is up to these days, and if she still gives advice to poor suckers like herself. Maybe she should check Twitter. 

Dinah has to suppress a groan as she squirms back to her side of the bed, has to stay quiet because making a sound will surely wake Helena from her sleep and Dinah’s trying to be nicer to the world and that includes not waking up your bedmate because you can’t sleep. 

She reaches out to grab at the analogue alarm on her nightstand, pulling the clock close so she can peer at it and almost groaning again when she sees the time. 

She drops her clock back to her nightstand with before crossing her wrists over her head and staring up at the ceiling. 

The clock mocks her with its steady ticking, betraying each passed second that Dinah has to lay there without sleeping, begging to a deity somewhere, anywhere, to help her sleep. 

Instead, she gets an itch on her leg. 

She carefully kicks the sheets away from her body and lets her hand drift down, nails digging into her thigh with more force than necessary, as if the itch is somehow to blame. 

And maybe it is, maybe her body isn’t letting her sleep for reasons unknown and if she could just figure out what it is, then maybe she can finally fall asleep. 

Maybe there’s a puzzle to be solved, and the reward is sleep. 

She tallies where everybody is in the house again, for maybe the third or fourth time that night as if placing everybody will still her mind. 

Renee more dead than alive and just the way she likes it, Harley probably having snuck out to do god knows what with god knows who, Cassandra safe and sound under the first set of soft sheets she’s ever had, Helena asleep next to her. 

Dinah is still wide awake. 

And then suddenly… it all makes sense. 

Dinah’s not an idiot. She used to get good grades and she thinks she’s pretty street-savvy and she can read people very well. 

She also knows how to get people — which is, admittedly, a gross way of putting it, even if true. 

Dinah knows how to get what she wants. 

And maybe... 

Maybe Helena knows that. 

She’s been trying for a year to get Helena in the right spot, to draw her in, to make her realise just how fucking _wanted_ she is and none of Dinah’s moves had worked. 

Not the smiling, not the compliments, not the gentle touches, not even the low voice and teasing winks. 

Dinah had chalked it all up to Helena not knowing the signs, Helena thinking people just smiled a lot, and paid friends compliments, and were open with their affections and teasing. 

Dinah had thought it was that Helena didn’t know what she was doing but what if... 

What if she’d known all along? 

What if the reason she’d never made a move was that she didn’t want to? 

What if the awkwardness that Dinah had thought meant she’d need to go slower, was actually Helena’s way of rebuffing her? 

What if, what if, what if. 

What if this was just another way for the universe to say “you’re not worthy”, what if this was proof that she doesn’t deserve this, what if this was her penance for harbouring all that resentment all those years? 

Dinah can’t think of any punishment more fitting than loving without having those feelings returned. 

She has to choke back a sob when she realises just how right she may be. 

Because it’s been a year, and there’s no way Helena doesn’t know that Dinah’s trying to woo her. She may be a little socially stunted but nobody’s that blind. 

And then with the sadness, comes a wave of guilt. 

How much had Dinah pushed, how hard had she tried, how forward was she being... how uncomfortable was she making Helena? 

How uncomfortable was she making Helena. 

Helena, always cordial and polite and never wanting to cause a bother, keeping Dinah at arms’ length not because her social skills had failed her in knowing how to react to Dinah’s advances, but because she didn’t reciprocate those feelings and had no idea how to tell Dinah. 

She can’t imagine it must be easy for Helena to have been raised by three men — three trained killers — and she’s not sure telling a girl who likes you that you don’t return those feelings was very high on the list of things they found important to teach her. 

Dinah feels sick to her stomach. 

Helena had gotten stabbed one time when they were out doing the night job, “lightly stabbed” Helena corrected but Dinah doesn’t think there really is much of a distinction once blade pierces through skin. 

Harley’s a doctor but her PhD is in head stuff not body stuff so when she’d looked at the wound, she had just grimaced and said “anybody got a stapler?” and Dinah had almost kicked her out the apartment through the fifth storey window. 

Helena must have been in a decent amount of pain because she wasn’t swearing the way she usually would, annoyance a placeholder for whatever vengeance she would enact on the Gotham goons the next time they were out. She was quiet instead, eyes closed for intervals too long to be considered blinking and a hand pressed over the wound. 

She was clearly in pain, and she still said that she would be fine, to just bandage her up and that she’d sleep it off. 

She must have been so incredibly uncomfortable and yet didn’t want to bother anybody with it, taking all the burden on her own. 

Living with the unease and not wanting to bother anybody is kind of a hallmark of Helena’s personality and Dinah feels her blood chill when she realises that this courtesy has now been extended to her. 

Helena, too uncomfortable with her advances to say anything, once again shouldering a weight that isn’t hers to carry. 

Dinah vows to do better. 

* * *

She wakes up before Helena, with the first rays of the sun peeking through her haphazardly closed curtains and there’s an arm around her waist and a soft breath washing over her shoulder with every exhale. 

In any other situation — hell, even just a day before — Dinah would have smiled and leant into the embrace and basked in it, in how Helena hadn’t been able to stay away from her but today, with a revelation fresh in her mind and a meagre three hours of sleep under her belt, she can’t find it in her to see this as anything but a simple half-asleep movement. 

She manages to squirm out of Helena’s embrace before she lets herself enjoy the feeling of being held too much and drags her tired body to the bathroom before ending up in the kitchen, hanging over a mug of tea with her head propped up in her hand and her eyes barely open. 

Renee comes into the kitchen, feet dragging and doesn’t even say anything, lets out a low grunt in lieu of a greeting as she grabs a bottle of water before disappearing into her bedroom. 

Dinah doesn’t know how long she sits there for, staring at the corner of the cabinet until it turns wonky and her tea cold by the time she remembers to drink it. 

“Hey.” 

Dinah’s head snaps up at the soft voice, sight a little blurry around the edges as she refocuses on something other than the stained dark wood, eyes landing on Helena as she hovers just inside the doorway to the kitchen, staring at Dinah with an unreadable expression on her face. 

“Morning,” Dinah says with a small, polite smile. 

It’s so hard to keep it muted, to avoid letting her real feelings show, when all she wants to do is let her lips twist wide at the sight of a freshly awake Helena in front of her, a line on her cheek from where the pillowcase must have creased under her face, hair in every direction, and eyes still carrying sleep in them. 

She’s incredibly endearing like this without meaning to be, and there’s a softness to her in the morning that just makes her that much more lovable. 

“Are you okay?” Helena asks and Dinah’s gaze snaps up to her eyes from where she’d let it roam down the slope of her neck and to her sharp collarbones. 

Helena’s frowning at her, eyes flickering between Dinah’s and she just looks plain uncomfortable and Dinah suddenly realises what she’s doing, what she promised herself she wouldn’t be doing anymore. 

Seeing how clearly Helena doesn’t enjoy that really drives home the revelation and Dinah wonders how long Helena has been wanting to say something about it. 

“I’m fine,” she manages with a tight smile but Helena’s expression doesn’t ease and Dinah feels the weight in her chest settle. “Don’t worry about it.” 

“Okay,” Helena says, the word dragged out like she doesn’t entirely believe it but as requested, she doesn’t ask any more. “Do you want breakfast?” 

Helena doesn’t wait for her to answer, already opening the fridge and pulling out ingredients and as much as she tries not to, Dinah can’t keep her eyes off the woman, watching the ripple of muscles in her back and the way she tries to move hair out of her face with her forearm and a grunt of annoyance, and when Helena looks over her shoulder at Dinah, dark eyes studying her and the hint of a smile tugging at the corner of her lips, Dinah knows this is going to be harder than she thought because she’s already in way too deep. 

* * *

Dinah has never walked on hot coals before in her life but she when she was little she watched the special where Oprah did and sure, she had seemed enlightened or whatever the fuck after she’d walked over them, but all Dinah could remember were the failed attempts, the times she’d stepped onto the coals and burned her feet on the fire and had to retreat. 

Oprah had clearly wanted to get to the other side — and not piggybacked on someone’s back or around it either, like Dinah’s mom had joked — but she still could not get over the searing pain in her feet to get to that point. 

Three days. 

Each day with a new and different objective but it takes her three whole days to limit who she is around Helena. 

She stops looking up whenever Helena enters a room, she remains quiet when Helena manages to one-up Renee’s snark, she keeps a distance of at least a foot between them at all times, she bites her tongue in lieu of saying something slightly flirty whenever Helena makes an unintentional innuendo. 

It’s hard to pretend not to be interested in everything Helena Bertinelli and Dinah can feel an ache deep in her bones but she keeps her eyes averted, keeps her hands to herself, and keeps her mouth shut. 

Maybe day four will get her over the hot coals and to the endpoint without feeling like her soul is on fire. 

* * *

Dinah is very bad at saying no to Cassandra, so when the teenager asks her to braid her hair for her, Dinah doesn’t refuse. 

It’s worth it for the way Cass lights up, the type of joyful expression that’s been happening more often now that they’ve got her in a stable living situation with people to love and care for her and Dinah feels a trickle of warmth in her chest at the open display of happiness. 

Cassandra says there’s a movie on that she wants to watch and that they can settle on the couch and beckons Dinah to follow her. 

“Hey, H,” Cassandra says a second before Dinah turns into the living room and it’s not enough notice to keep Dinah from looking at Helena, the way the woman sits cross-legged on the couch with her nose buried in a book, turning away just before Helena glances up at them. 

“Hey,” she says softly. 

“If you sit on the couch, I can sit on the floor?” Cassandra offers now that there’s not enough couch space for the both of them but Dinah barely hears her, finds herself wondering why they never got a bigger couch when moving into this place because there’s no way she’s gonna be able to keep a foot between herself and Helena if she sits on the couch. 

“What’s going on?” 

“Dinah’s gonna braid my hair,” Cassandra says in a cheery voice and that finally snaps her back to the present, drawing a tight smile from Dinah as she turns Helena’s way but keeps her eyes averted. 

Out of the corner of her eye she can see Helena nod and mark her book, setting it aside before standing up, presumably to stop taking up the whole couch and give Dinah some room to shimmy past her. 

Dinah moves closer, swallowing thickly when she realises how close she’ll have to get and because she’s not looking where she’s going and she’s distracted by her proximity to Helena, she ends up bumping right into her. Cassandra pulls the coffee table away to plop down in that exact spot and she doesn’t really pay attention so her shoulder nudges Dinah’s leg and tips her too far to correct. 

Helena’s hands are warm and firm as they slide over Dinah’s hips, holding her as they both crash down to the couch, Dinah ending up fully in her lap and Helena’s arms wrapping around her middle to keep her in place and prevent her from sliding further down and tumbling to the floor. 

Dinah can feel the soft exhale of surprise against her jaw, Helena’s breath washing over her and making her shiver. Helena surrounds her, the citrus smell of Dinah’s body wash that Helena likes to steal washing over her and it feels like she’s in a blanket, wrapped up in the warmth of all things Helena. 

Helena holds her firmly and everything goes still for a moment.

“Dinah?” she murmurs then and Dinah’s eyes snap open, breath caught in her throat as she scrambles off Helena’s lap and to the other side of the couch. 

“Sorry,” she manages to choke out, avoiding looking at Helena to prevent herself from doing something stupid, something she promised herself she wouldn’t do anymore. 

She can feel her heart beating a mile a minute in her chest, pumping warmth through her body and Dinah feels trapped, too hot and unable to do anything about it. 

Cassandra hands her a hairbrush and squirms in place as she flicks on the TV and when she winds her fingers in Cassandra’s dark locks to partition her hair for the two French braids she wants, Dinah is hit with a wave of déjà vu and for the first time in maybe ever, she’s happy to let the sadness and grief wash over her if only to distract her from the heat of Helena’s knee occasionally bumping hers. 

* * *

Dinah startles when her bedroom door opens without a prior knock, her hand halfway to removing the studs in her ears as she stops to twist and see who her intruder is. 

She barely has time to react, to do anything or say anything before Helena steps into her room and closes the door behind her and that’s new. Helena has never entered her bedroom without knocking first, even when her door has been open and she’d beckoned Helena in. 

Cassandra had come to say goodnight to Dinah before heading to bed and Dinah thought that Helena had gone to bed at the same time so sitting here now, late into the night with Helena standing in her bedroom is a bit of a shock. 

“Did I do something wrong?” 

“What?” she asks, dropping her arms to her sides as she looks at Helena. 

“Because you— because I… this—” She grumbles softly and Dinah feels confusion well up inside her. “Did I do something?” 

Dinah’s quiet for a while, expecting Helena to say more or elaborate but she just pins Dinah with a pained look. 

“What are you talking about?” 

“Ever since I crashed in your bed, things have been… off? And I don’t know what I did or what’s going on or maybe I said something in my sleep or you’re going through something and need some space or maybe I _did_ do something wrong to hurt you or offend you and I would never do that intentionally and I want you to know that I don’t really mean it personally when I get angry at things and maybe that gave you the wrong impression but I can try to—no.” She frowns hard at the floor, clearing her throat before looking at Dinah again. “Whatever I did, I’m sorry.” 

Dinah blinks for a moment, processing the wall of words Helena has just thrown at her. 

Helena stands in front of her emanating nervous energy, her shoulders squared back and her brow pinched and if it weren’t for the dark grey sweatpants and thin camisole Helena was wearing, Dinah would think they had travelled back in time to a year ago, sitting opposite each other at the taco place Harley loves so much, the Huntress persona molten away to reveal the true person behind the mask. 

“You didn’t do anything wrong,” she finally says, but the words don’t have the desired effect because she can see confusion flit across Helena’s features, her shoulders curling forwards slightly as her gaze skitters away from Dinah’s. 

“Oh.” 

“It’s all me.” 

Helena really frowns then and Dinah realises she’s going to have to spell this out for her, the awful ordeal of making her feelings known to someone who doesn’t return them and so she sighs, eyes closing for a moment as she gathers up the courage to crack open her chest. 

Helena thinking she’s done something wrong when it’s all Dinah’s fault for making assumptions in the first place hurts her heart almost worst than the realisation that her love for Helena only goes one way. 

“I’m sorry I gave you the impression you did something wrong,” she says softly, voice an attempt at soothing. “You didn’t. I’m just… the whole us being friends thing and nothing more is taking some getting used to.” 

“Oh.” Helena’s fingers flex by her side and Dinah’s eyes are drawn to the movement, the way Helena curls her fingers into a fist before releasing it, a few times over and over. “Okay.” 

Helena’s eyes look so unbearably sad and Dinah feels like something is terribly wrong. 

“Helena?” she tries in a kind, encouraging tone but that just seems to make Helena retreat more. 

“I think I just realised what’s going on.” Her gaze skitters away from Dinah’s again as she swallows thickly. “Thank you for telling me. I’m sorry.” 

“You don’t have to be sorry for anything.” 

“I’m—I’ll try to work on my feelings.” 

The heavy, thick, uncomfortable feeling that’s made itself home in Dinah’s gut suddenly seems to liquify, the knot in her throat lessening as her eyes snap back to Helena’s face. 

“What feelings?” 

“What do you mean, what feelings?” Helena snaps even though her eyes glisten with unshed tears. “I’m sorry I have a crush on you, okay?” 

Dinah read somewhere once that the earth rotates at like a thousand miles per hour, and suddenly, Dinah can feel the earth beneath her feet, shifting, moving far faster than she can control her balance. She’s sitting down and she can still feel the shift beneath her feet, her stomach dropping out under her and she feels so dizzy for a moment that she misses the feeling of all her jewelry on her body and the way they make her feel grounded. 

Her mouth opens before she can stop it and her voice is so small when she says, “You have a crush on me?” 

Helena makes a tortured sound as she bolts from Dinah’s room, and Dinah finds herself staring at the spot Helena just vacated, trying to process and place this new piece of information and more than anything she’s grateful that Montoya is out tonight so she can’t be privy to this absolute trainwreck of a situation. 

Dinah feels every conviction of the last four days fall away, every argument she’d had with herself and every moment she’d needed to herself and even the quiet sobs into her pillow on the second day at the injustice of the world. 

The injustice that apparently wasn’t even real. 

“Helena,” she says, marching into the woman’s bedroom pretty much the same way she had into Dinah’s, closing the door behind her. She can’t help a small smile at the way Helena’s sprawled crossway on her bed, face down into a pillow and her feet dangling off the bed. 

“Get out,” she says, lifting her head long enough to growl the words out but Dinah’s never been deterred by her fury before and she’s not about to start now that they have something important to clear up. 

“No, I want to talk.” 

“Does your talk include more mocking? Because I don’t like it.” 

“I wasn’t mocking you, H,” she says, trying for the kindest tone because while she may not have been mocking, she certainly hasn’t been a stellar friend these past few days. “Can you please look at me?” 

“No.” 

“Please?” 

Her plea works because Helena starts to shift, twisting and sitting up to face Dinah with crossed arms and a set jaw, eyes trained on the floor by Dinah’s feet. 

“I like you.” 

Helena’s head snaps up so fast that Dinah almost feels the whiplash herself, and the taut line of Helena’s body goes slack as she tries to figure Dinah out, to see if this is more mocking or if she’s being genuine. 

“Really?” 

The shaky quality of Helena’s voice makes Dinah’s heart clench with pain, the need to reassure her and take away the clear anguish growing so much that her mouth gets away from her and Dinah says, “Since I met you. You’re very hard not to love, Helena.” 

“You love me?” 

“Yes.” 

It’s deafeningly quiet for a few moments after that and Dinah feels like she can’t breathe. 

Helena looks at her, really studies her for a beat and not for the first time does Dinah wish she could read minds. 

“So why did you stop talking to me?” Helena finally asks in a small voice. “And you don’t smile at me anymore and you stopped singing.” 

It’s been four days since she’s stopped, since she actively worked to lessen her flirting and her teasing and her playful interactions with Helena and the way the woman sounds so upset and disappointed makes a well of tears grow inside of her. 

“I thought—” Dinah laughs softly, without humour as she plays with her fingers, missing the rings there more than anything and hating the feeling of her hands and wrists so naked. Now that she’s realised the misunderstanding, her whole line of thinking feels so incredibly stupid and ridiculous and she feels so unlike herself. “I thought _you_ didn’t like _me_.” 

“Anybody who doesn’t like you is stupid,” Helena says immediately and it draws a shaky smile from Dinah. 

“I’ve been trying to nudge you towards me for a year and so I thought that maybe… maybe after all that time it wasn’t working because you didn’t feel the same way.” 

Nothing in her expression shifts, but something in Helena’s eyes changes. 

“It was working.” 

Helena doesn’t look away from her the way Dinah expects her to, and her voice may have been timid when she spoke but her eyes tell a whole story and Dinah’s breath leaves her lungs in one large exhale, leaving her with just the burning in her chest. 

“Yeah?” she asks with a small grin. It’s not the outright confession she’d wanted but it’s as close to one as she’s gonna get and it’s so incredibly _Helena_ that Dinah can feel the full force of her feelings return and magnify, this time less with that gut-wrenching pain and more as a lightness filling her lungs. 

“Yes.” 

“Okay,” Dinah says slowly. “I was afraid that you were too awkward about telling me to stop flirting.” 

“I’m too awkward to tell you to never stop.” 

The tension of the week finally snaps inside Dinah, all the misunderstanding and unnecessary angst and foolishness and she starts laughing, unable to stop even as Helena throws her a confused look. She shakes her head, gestures vaguely to try and communicate that she’s not laughing at Helena and the woman seems to understand because she softens, and as Dinah laughs even harder, Helena’s lips twitch with mirth. 

Dinah’s not sure what she looks like, half-dressed in pyjamas and laughing like a maniac but it’s clearly something because Helena smiles so faintly, a rare occurrence that Dinah loves. 

She _loves_. 

She sobers at the thought and then suddenly her vision is all Helena, having missed the quiet flash of movement and Helena leans over her, towers over her and Dinah’s not that much shorter than her but suddenly, looking up at stormy brown eyes, it feels like Helena is larger than life. 

Her features are set and she looks determined and for a second Dinah doesn’t understand it — but only for a second — because then Helena’s hands are light on her hips pulling her closer, a hand drifting up to cradle the back of her neck, tangling in some braids and locs. 

Helena pauses and opens her mouth like she’s about to say something but the resolve inside Dinah finally snaps and she surges up, hands rough on Helena’s waist as she closes the gap and presses her lips to Helena’s. 

Helena doesn’t gasp and isn’t surprised, just melts into Dinah and presses her up against her bedroom door, the weight of her body warm and welcome as she kisses Dinah back. 

Dinah feels like she’s glowing. With every brush of their lips and swipe of the tongue and twitch of fingers at the nape of her neck, she feels her chest fill with warmth, like rays from the sun spilling into her lungs and shining through her ribs until she’s nothing but warm, golden light, her only tether to the world Helena. 

Helena moans into her mouth and Dinah feels her body shatter, legs giving out and Helena wraps an arm around her middle to keep her from crumpling to the ground as they part. She doesn’t go too far, their lips brushing as their harsh breaths mingle but Helena’s looking at her like she’s the most wondrous thing she’s ever seen in her life and Dinah could drown in her dark eyes. 

“That was nice,” Helena says, voice like gravel and Dinah has to twist her head away to bite down on her lower lip. 

“That was really nice,” she says, eyes fluttering closed when Helena’s fingernails scrape over her scalp just at the base of her skull and she could so easily just melt into a puddle of want right here on Helena’s bedroom floor. 

“Does this mean you’ll sing again?” 

The question pings something in the back of her brain and Dinah crawls through the fog of desire to turn back and look at Helena with a curious look. 

“What do you mean, sing?” 

“It’s just…” Helena’s cheeks are flushed a delightful pink, lips swollen from kissing and Dinah’s tempted to capture her lips in another bruising kiss but her curiosity wins out for the time being. “It’s been so quiet.” 

“I thought you loved the quiet?” 

“Not with you.” Helena’s blush deepens but she doesn’t shy away from Dinah’s intent gaze. “You’re always making noise, always singing to yourself or humming or something.” 

“Oh,” Dinah says. “I didn’t even realise.” 

“I know,” Helena says with a sheepish smile. “That’s what makes it—makes you so beautiful.” 

Dinah feels like she’s either going to cry or laugh, so she does neither, lets her touch wander up Helena’s back and drags her into another kiss and lets Helena kiss her and this time when the warm feeling pulses through her veins and her body feels like it’s on fire, she doesn’t shy away from it and lets it baptise her soul. 

And as it turns out, she doesn’t need Oprah’s help after all. 

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading and let me know what you think!


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